


Ideals of Freedom

by The_Client



Series: Scenes from an Alternate Episode IX (writing order) [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Stormtrooper Rebellion, villain monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Client/pseuds/The_Client
Summary: Hux (the Spy!) lays his truth on Rose and Finn. Also hints of stormtrooper rebellion. All works in this series can be read independently, or in any order.Content warning: mild/brief references to abuse, mental health issues and suicidal thoughts***“Even if your Jedi does for Palpatine – and survives – do you think that means the Resistance wins? We’re still a vast military organization, you’re still a ragtag band of madbeings. And even if you do win, I’m a collaborator now, aren’t I? Showing such good faith by letting TZ-1719 bring you into her pathetic little treason-game. Your oh-so-idealistic government, should you manage to form one, will want to be merciful , to promote peace and cooperation. I’m an extremely talented bureaucrat. I’ll find a way to make myself useful.“And those of us who believe the masses are best ruled, firmly but wisely, by their betters – we’ll always exist. We kept Palpatine’s Empire running. We were quietly holding positions of respect in your Senate, when your precious General Organa was drummed out in disgrace. You can’t root us out, after all – not and maintain your ideals of freedom. Try to eradicate us, and you become us.”
Series: Scenes from an Alternate Episode IX (writing order) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600099
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Ideals of Freedom

Rose’s competent fingers dance over the switches, completing the ancient U-wing’s landing sequence, leaving all systems partially engaged for a quick getaway. Behind her, Finn has shouldered his blaster and is completing the final safety check on hers. There’s something to be said for stormtrooper meticulousness.

“So have you talked to him yet?” she asks conversationally.

“You want to talk about that _now_?”

“Why not? It seems like we’ve got a few minutes.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. He doesn’t feel the same way I do.”

Her eyes roll until she thinks she should be able to see her own brain. She’ll never understand how some men can be so completely oblivious to the fact that they’re being flirted with. By _Dameron,_ no less.

“How do you know, without asking?”

He’s finished with her weapon; she settles its trusty, reassuring weight at her side. She still considers herself a mechanic and engineer first, but in the much-reduced Resistance she’s had the opportunity – the obligation – to acquire many new competencies. Blaster-handling is not the least of them.

“I mean, I understand why you can’t be my boyfriend. I just don’t get why you refuse to try to be _anyone’s._ You don’t have to worry about rejection making things awkward. Half the base has propositioned Dameron, he _can’t_ be accepting all of them, but he seems to find a way to still be friends with everybody.”

Large, square hands clap comically over his ears. “Shut. _Up._ ”

A light flickers outside the cockpit: the signal pattern. Putting levity aside, Rose lets Finn proceed her down the ramp and into the night.

Pasaana is the rendezvous point chosen by their mysterious contact: a planet newly under occupation – meaning both that the machinery of First Order surveillance is not yet in full operation, and that the planet still requires “inspection” visits by personages like the contact. The agreed-upon coordinates are deep in the desert, far from the homesteads of the planet’s natives. Rose’s handlight plays in the middle distance, finally catching on a threatening silhouette: a stormtrooper. But the figure lifts both hands beside its head, gauntleted fingers spread wide. Farther away stands another figure, tall and narrow in the severely cut uniform of an officer.

As they reach conversational distance, the armored figure removes its helmet, becoming a beautiful, dark-skinned woman, hair tightly bound, almond eyes alight with intelligence. They widen slightly as they take in Finn’s face.

“You’re FN-2187.”

“I was. Finn now. You?”

She shakes her head. “Still Tee-Zed for now.” Her nameplate reads TZ-1719.

“All right,” Rose says. “What do you have for us?”

The woman nods briskly, seeming to appreciate Rose’s refusal to waste time. “I represent a movement among the stormtroopers. There are many of us who are starting to have our own ideas about what we want to do with our lives – to _break our conditioning._ ” She grimaces. “We’re not numerous enough to pull off a coup yet, but we’re growing.”

_Fabulous._ Should the Resistance ever reach the point of being able to launch a systematic assault on the First Order – unlikely as that seems, given their current pitiful numbers – these troopers might well be what tips the balance.

Still, among the skills Rose has acquired are those of diplomacy, never far from espionage. _Proceed with caution. It could be a trap_. “Can you show me any proof that what you’re saying is true? Any evidence?”

“I’m not sure what we could provide right now, without compromising ourselves.” Tee-Zed pauses, frowns. “We are seeking a key to the database that records all stormtroopers’ origins. We haven’t yet found a way to obtain and utilize the key without revealing ourselves to the computational security system, but we won’t stop trying. Many of us in the movement began to … awaken … when we were accidentally exposed to information about our pasts, or encountered something that triggered a memory.

“If we do compromise the database, we’d be happy to have the Resistance broadcast its contents to the galaxy – and I would think that would be proof enough for you.”

Rose nods. “I see. Is there anything we can do for each other right now?”

Tee-Zed’s eyes drift to Finn again. “External propaganda is forbidden to us, of course, but some always slips through. FN-2187’s – Finn’s – story is known among us. Whatever messages of encouragement you can put out into the galaxy, they will have an impact.”

Finn is studying his large feet in his aw-shucks way, but his spine also straightens with pride. Rose surreptitiously pats him on the back, just far enough above his adorable butt not to seem too familiar – but movement in her peripheral vision quickly distracts her. The distant, uniformed figure is striding closer – and as its silhouette shifts with the movement, it becomes suddenly unmistakable.

“ _Hux?”_ she says, far too loudly, her diplomatic training falling out the bottom of her brain-pan.

He’s close enough to see her face now. “Oh. _You._ How … charming.”

She doesn’t bother to stifle her smirk as he massages the hand she’d bitten, back on the _Supremacy_.

“ _You’re_ our contact.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he observes in a tone of profound, aggressive boredom. “I have another message for you. TZ-1719, return to the transport.”

“Yes, sir.” The trooper nods to Finn, then to Rose, before re-seating her helmet, turning neatly in place, and marching away.

Rose discovers that her hand has settled on her blaster’s grip. She leaves it there, even though the despicable General is in parade rest, empty hands behind his back. He casts his eyes to the heavens, sighs.

“There’s no way to say this without sounding utterly ridiculous, so I suppose I’ll just cut to the chase.”

“Well, out with it then.”

“Kriffing Emperor Palpatine isn’t dead. He’s been hiding out in the Unknown Regions for thirty years, and is about to return with a fleet of death-star-tech equipped Star Destroyers.”

Rose blinks, replays the words in her mind. Turns to Finn. He shrugs, looking as boggle-eyed as she supposes she must. But she’s the one in command of this mission. Putting on her sabacc-face, she faces the general once again.

“Is this some sort of joke? Or a plot to send the Resistance on a wild fathier-chase, while you have your way with the rest of the galaxy?”

He shrugs. “Aren’t we having our way with it, already? But don’t take my word for it. You must have _some_ sort of half-arsed intelligence network. Use it.”

Surely he must be mocking her. But he seems so … sincere. So truly _disgusted_ by his own message. She decides to try another tactic.

“Why are you even here, talking to us? You personally.”

He narrows his eyes at her, considering for long moments. Finally, he laughs.

“Why not? Should you somehow tattle on me to my rivals in the Order, you’ll be telling them nothing they don’t already know, even if they can’t prove it. And they’ll hardly try to use your testimony against me. Can’t set a precedent of taking the word of traitors and rebel scum over that of a General – not when _they_ want to be General some day.

“Snoke was bad enough. The decadent old vulture never really gave a shit about our political philosophy – he just found it convenient for us to do all the heavy lifting of making him grand poo-bah of the galaxy, without his ever having to break a sweat on that ridiculous gold bathrobe of his. But we needed his money, his protection from hostile forces in our exile – even his thrice-damned Force-woo could be useful at times. He understood his own best interests, and they aligned with ours well enough. I could work with that, until the appropriate time came to … stop working with it.

“Ren’s another matter. I’m not an idiot, I know he’s lying about what happened in that throne room, before your kamikaze friend decided our flagship needed a new ventilation shaft. If he's the one that did for Snoke I can hardly blame him – kriff, I’d have done it years ago, had the old ghoul done half the things to me that I suspect he did to Ren.

“But Ren's brain’s always been as cracked as his face after Starkiller. He’ll drag us all into the figurative Akkadese Maw – hell, maybe into the literal one – being suicidal to just _precisely_ short of the point of kriffing _doing it_ already and putting the rest of us out of his misery. No, it has to be _indirect_ self-destruction. Forgetting the mission objective on Takodana for the dream of oblivion in a pretty girl’s bosom. Chasing kriffing _phantoms_ on Crait. Utterly insensible to the chaos he leaves in his wake.

“Still, I’d eventually have found an assassination method he couldn’t anticipate. A pity Phasma’s gone – it would be so much easier with her around. But sooner or later he’d have gotten too distracted by some adolescent angst-fest to notice the blaster at his back.

“Then I find out that all along we’ve been puppets of the egomaniac who _orchestrated both sides of a kriffing war for years,_ wasting resources on an unimaginable level – apparently just to feed his immortal-wizard fetish. That he’s sent his _special little teacher’s pet_ from the Unknown Regions to take command of all _we’ve_ built. _Utterly unacceptable._ We idealists from the Academy love the Empire, not the Emperor. To be _his_ instruments taints all that we believe, all that we’ve worked for.

“But I know when I’m outmatched. This isn’t Ren. This is a kriffing phantom who should have been dead years ago from simple old age, let alone from being supposedly blown to atoms in the reactor of a super-weapon. I’ve no hope of dealing with him myself. I think Ren actually has it in his addled head to try, but his recent success rate doesn’t inspire confidence. No, it has to be your _Jedi._ ” He shudders as if pronouncing a particularly disgusting obscenity. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and she, Ren, and Palpatine will destroy each other, leaving the rest of us with a nice rational galaxy that obeys the kriffing laws of physics. But until that happens – loathsome as it is – my interests align with yours.”

The astonishing monologue finally stops, giving Rose a chance to interject. “And you think you’ll come out of this OK, somehow?”

He barks out another laugh. “Even if your Jedi does for Palpatine – and _survives_ – do you think that means the Resistance wins? We’re still a vast military organization, you’re still a ragtag band of madbeings. And even if you do win, I’m a _collaborator_ now, aren’t I? Showing such _good faith_ by letting TZ-1719 bring you into her pathetic little treason-game. Your oh-so-idealistic government, should you manage to form one, will want to be _merciful_ , to promote _peace_ and _cooperation_. I’m an extremely talented bureaucrat. I’ll find a way to make myself useful.

“And those of us who believe the masses are best ruled, firmly but wisely, by their betters – we’ll always exist. We kept Palpatine’s Empire running. We were quietly holding positions of respect in your Senate, when your precious General Organa was drummed out in disgrace. You can’t root us out, after all – not and maintain your _ideals_ _of_ _freedom._ Try to eradicate us, and you become us _._ ”

***

“He’s cracked, himself,” Finn mutters as they climb into the U-wing’s cockpit. “Admiral Holdo breaking all his toys must have sent him over the edge _._ ”

Rose begins the takeoff sequence. “I don’t know. I mean, yeah, there’s a whole lotta crazy there. But it doesn’t feel like the out-of-touch-with-reality kind of crazy. Can you really not believe it’s possible?”

Finn’s witnessed so much more of the Force than she has, after all. She’d been in the bowels of the engineering deck when General Organa miraculously survived the attack on the _Raddus._ Unconscious when Luke Skywalker made his last stand, when Finn’s friend Rey supposedly levitated several tons of boulders to let the dregs of the Resistance flee to safety. And Finn had told her of other things, too. Of a blaster bolt idling in the air like a forgotten float-pallet; of an eyeless mask that had seen the treason in his heart like a tumor on a medscan. (And had, for some unfathomable reason, let it pass.) Of the feel of a lightsaber in his own hands.

Now, he grimaces. “So, say it is possible. What do we do then?”

_What, indeed._

But the first step is confirmation. There are others at the base with more intelligence experience, but Rose is already brainstorming. Hux had implied that his supposed intelligence was widely known in the First Order high command; someone would have told their civilian loved ones, sowing the seeds of rumors. If “Imperial” ships were arriving from the Unknown Regions, surely some vessel had been present at the right place and time to see them. The Resistance intelligence network was better than Hux thought; a lot more beings were willing to provide information than to risk their ships, fortunes and necks more directly by heeding General Organa’s military summons.

“Back to base for now,” she sighs, patting Finn’s shoulder reassuringly. “Think about something else. Like all the inspiring propaganda you’re going to make for the stormtrooper rebellion.”

He groans. She smiles.


End file.
